Like, say, Harry Connick, Stilgoe is a skilled pianist (not only in the sizzling, boppish mode he uses to embellish his own material, but also - as he demonstrated by inserting a stride-piano passage into Just One of Those Things - in other modes of the jazz-piano tradition, too) as well as a versatile and intelligent interpreter of standards; unlike many of his contemporaries, though, Stilgoe is also capable of writing smart, witty songs of his own.

On this recording they present arrangements of thirteen Monk compositions, ranging nicely from such predictable classics as "Ruby My Dear," "Well You Needn't," and "Straight No Chaser" to less frequently recorded fare like "Brake's Sake," "Green Chimneys," and the notoriously difficult "Criss Cross"--a piece whose rhythmic dislocations sound almost like a parody of boppish complexity.

The horns also dominated Green's boppish original "Central Park South," with Moody serving up a passionate tenor saxophone and the stalwart Blanchard, another Monterey veteran perhaps best known as the composer for most of director Spike Lee's movies, blowing a fiery trumpet solo that was equal parts Miles Davis and Clifford Brown.

a boppish original that captures Ferguson's glee at being awarded an honorary doctorate in 2000 from Rowan University, where DiBlasio is director of jazz studies and the creator of the Maynard Ferguson Institute of Jazz Studies.

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